Wednesday, May 24, 2017

10 Questions: Vegan Foodie with Miriam Sorrell

Malta-based Miriam Sorrell maintains a prolific and active presence
online through her recipe innovation on her website, Mouthwatering
Vegan Recipes. A popular
website with hundreds of free recipes, MVR has a special affinity for
sun-drenched Mediterranean flavors but can do it all, proving in recipe after
recipe how vegan food is not a sacrifice but bursting with flavor and variety. Through
her various social media platforms, Miriam shows that amazing vegan food is
something anyone can create without a ton of complicated techniques or
hard-to-find ingredients: the simplest food preparations are often the most
delicious. Please check out her various socialmedia platforms, including her brand new YouTube channel, as well as her cookbooks, to help
spread the word about compassionate living through the lure of some luscious
food. As a passionate vegan, Miriam aspires to save the animals, winning over
one palate at a time. We are proud to feature her as this week’s Vegan Foodie.

1. How did
you start down this path of creating delicious food? Was a love for food
nurtured into you? Did you have any special relatives or mentors who helped to
instill this passion?

I have
always enjoyed cooking from a very early age, and in particular preparing
delicious food for close friends and family. As a child, I was impressed
and influenced by a particular couple who were like an aunt and uncle to me,
and she would prepare the most wonderful homely food which I adored – this
certainly inspired me, together with the fact that my father owned a restaurant
in London, which I used to help out in as a teenager.

2. What was your diet like
when you were growing up? Did you have any favorite meals or meal traditions?
Do you carry them over today?

Well,
of course, food was far simpler then – and because I come from a Mediterranean
background, I have always loved the best of Greek and Maltese cuisine. Inevitably,
meat and fish would feature fairly prominently, and kleftiko was a firm
favourite, together with the simple Maltese ‘Ħobż biż-żejt’ (Maltese bread
drizzled with olive oil, and smeared with beefsteak tomatoes or tomato paste,
then served with olives, crushed black pepper, etc). I still love simple
rustic cuisine, though due to the constantly expanding horizons of my work, I
have had the privilege of exploring so many different foods and cuisines.

3. What is the best vegan meal
you've ever had? Give us all the details!

That’s
a very difficult question to answer, because there have been so many! I have to
add, that one of the hardest aspects of becoming vegan was when I realized just
how lacking most restaurants were in creativity when it came to vegan menu
options, although this has improved considerably over the years, particularly
in the last year or so. This only served to spur me on further to use my own
creativity and start my food blog. So, my honest answer to your question
has to be that nearly all the best vegan meals I can remember having have been
created in my own kitchen. Our Christmas meal is always memorable – I
usually make one of the two roulades on my blog – there’s the ‘Lentil, Mushroom, Spinach & Spicy Nut
Roulade’, or the
‘Double Stuffed Savoury Christmas Log’. Aside from the above, we
stayed with my sister a couple of years ago, and she always goes to town in the
kitchen whenever I’m over. She produced an incredible Briam (Greek Mixed
Roasted Vegetables), which she served with ‘Bamies Latheres me Domata’ (okra
cooked in a tomato sauce) – this so impressed me that I created my own version
of Briam which went in my second book Yasou. [UK version here.]

4. If you could prepare one meal
or dessert for anyone living or dead, who would it be for and what would you
create?

I
think it would have to be for my dear late mother, who passionately believed in
me. And since she was Greek, I would make my vegan keftethes (meatballs)
for her since I learnt how to make them from her own recipe (which is also
published in my book ‘YASOU’) coupled up with a Greek salad topped with my
crumbled feta cheese (also from my book ‘YASOU’) - she would have loved that!

5. What do you think are common
mistakes in vegan cooking and how do you avoid them?

I
don’t see there being any difference between the mistakes made in vegan cooking
or any other form of cooking. Creativity is creativity, and food made
without any heart or soul will always taste as such. But an obvious shortfall
can be seen in so many food outlets, where the mentality is still that a vegan
dish can be a normal menu option with the meat or fish left out! Then,
when the chef tries to get a bit creative, you land up with a bizarre
combination of vegetables and perhaps a few beans, created in a panic behind
the scenes – this is an area that they haven’t covered in culinary
school. But, in truth, a talented chef should be able to come up with a
good vegan platter with any of the standard ingredients in his/her kitchen.

6. What ingredients are you
especially excited about at the moment?

I am working a lot with different forms of mushroom at the moment for my YouTube channel, and am completely blown
away by just how versatile fungi are, as well as nutritional yeast - an old
time favourite for vegans, I still love using it in many dishes for flavouring
- there are more, and what fascinates me the most is combining unlikely
ingredients in order to achieve amazing textures and tastes!

7. What are your top three
cuisines from around the world?

That’s pretty simple for me to answer – Greek (obviously), Middle Eastern, and
Asian (particularly Indian and Thai), since I love exotic and spicy food, I am
extremely excited by fusing different cuisines, giving them a twist as well as
my own personal touch!

8. Who or what has been most
influential to you on your vegan path? Individuals, groups, books, films, etc.
included.

I am an ethical vegan, so as my awareness of animal suffering and torture grew,
so did my passionate desire to do what I could do to help. I had been
vegetarian since my 20s, and this choice had also been ethical. The film Earthlings was a major turning point for
me, as was Gary Yourofsky, his University speech impacted me on many levels,
and although not everybody takes to his manner - being a pragmatist I look at
his astounding results in converting so many people to veganism which can only
be applauded, (and subsequently has became a close friend of mine, and who has
supporting my activism through my culinary endeavours).

9. What issue is nearest and
dearest to your heart that you would like people to know more about?

I abhor any form of animal suffering or exploitation. But I also cannot
tolerate the polarised view of many veganism (particularly the ‘vegan police’
and self-righteous vegans as well as the many trolls that frequently come out
of the woodwork). The infighting that occurs between people that are
supposed to be on the same side constantly shocks me. It becomes a battle of
egos, it is so very destructive to the vegan movement, and I feel that this is
so wasteful and counterproductive. An example is when I choose to focus on a
specific topic – in my case, this is often the skinning alive of dogs and cats
in China, the Yulin festival, etc. Now, as it happens, I do feel more
passionate about this cause than most others, and so I often post about this
subject on Facebook, particularly at this time of year, when Yulin is about to
take place (this has never been at the exclusion of all the other worldwide
animal horrors that occur each and every second of the day by the thousands).
But should this give people the license to accuse me of speciesism, and of not
caring about other animals suffering? This really hacks me off, as it
shows such narrow-mindedness. I do think that the horrific torture and
ghastly way in which dogs, cats, monkeys, etc. are treated before being killed
in China and Asia, should be hitting the headlines worldwide, and I wholly
support the efforts of Marc Ching, who is doing so much himself at great risk,
by personally rescuing dogs from China.

Because
most people do place a greater value on those animals traditionally kept as
household pets (cats and dogs), then inevitably they will be far more shocked
and relate more to images of cats and dogs being tortured, than say cows, pigs
or chickens. Then this could be a great starting point in increasing their
awareness of the broader picture (I saw this happen on a video with Earthling
Ed who spoke to a woman who was campaigning against the dog meat trade, he made
her aware of how cows, pigs etc. where treated, and she was horrified, one
could see on her face this was genuine, she was not vegan of course, and he
made her aware of this and she said she would consider veganism because she
couldn’t support such cruelty), and we then have the potential for them to make
the connection as to why they themselves shouldn’t be consuming or using
animals or dairy, and why they should become vegan.

But,
thanks must also go to the initiative of PETA and other progressive activist
organizations, who are running fantastic PR campaigns, with billboards in the
most prominent locations. Veganism is truly gaining more mainstream
status, though we still have a long, long way to go, and don’t really have the
time truth be told to be at any point ‘nit picking’ about little details thus
losing sight of the bigger picture. Time is king and millions of animals are
screaming out for our help each and every second round the clock.

10. Last, please finish this
sentence. “To me, veganism is…”

Veganism is living the truth of ‘live and let live’ and I shall never stop
fighting for animal rights until I draw my last breath.

5 comments:

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Hey guys, I'm so excited of getting my husband back after he left me and our 3 kids for another woman. After 2 years of marriage, me and my husband has been into one quarrel or the other until he finally left me and moved to California to be with another woman. i felt my life was over and my kids thought they would never see their father again. i tried to be strong just for the kids but i could not control the pains that torments my heart, my heart was filled with sorrows and pains because i was really in love with my husband. Every day and night i think of him and always wish he would come back to me, I was really upset and i needed help, so i searched for help online and I came across a website that suggested that Dr Unity can help get ex back fast. So, I felt I should give him a try. I contacted him and he told me what to do and i did it then he did a (Love spell) for me. 28 hours later, my husband really called me and told me that he miss me and the kids so much, So Amazing!! So that was how he came back that same day,with lots of love and joy,and he apologized for his mistake,and for the pain he caused me and the kids. Then from that day,our Marriage was now stronger than how it were before,All thanks to Dr Unity. he is so powerful and i decided to share my story on the internet that Dr Unity real and powerful spell caster who i will always pray to live long to help his children in the time of trouble, if you are here and you need your Ex back or your husband moved to another woman, do not cry anymore, contact this powerful spell caster now. Here’s his contact: Email him at: Unityspelltemple@gmail.com ,you can also call him or add him on Whats-app: +2348071622464 ,his website:http://unityspelltemple.yolasite.com ,Jessica, 26 years, Texas, USA .